University of SydneyFaculty of Arts and Social SciencesSchool of Letters, Art and MediaDepartment of Studies in Religion

Abstract:

The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate that Matthew included the name of Uriah (Matt 1:6) in the genealogy (Matt 1:2-17) in order to legitimise granting a fully-fledged Jewish identity to Gentile converts in his own day. Rather than the unnamed Bathsheba, it suggests the four named Old Testament outsiders in the Matthean genealogy, namely, Tamar (Matt 1:3), Rahab (Matt 1:5), Ruth (Matt 1:5) and Uriah (Matt 1:6), with respect to having a “better righteousness”, intermarriage and levirate marriage and argues that this approach brings clearer insight to the social setting of the Matthean community.
Part I (chapter 1) examines the scholarly debate about the social setting of the Matthean community from the beginning of the mid 1940s onwards. It summarizes and compares three major redactional perspectives between the mid-1940s and mid-1980s, with the four major sociological perspectives in the 1990s, namely, Graham Stanton, Anthony Saldarini, Andrew Overman and David Sim. It will then examine the interdisciplinary works of Boris Repschinski and Paul Foster of the 2000s, before concluding that the Matthean community was exclusively conflicting with the contemporary Jewish leadership.
Although it has been usual to approach the genealogy through seeking the significance of the four OT women, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba (who, it should be noted, is not actually named), Part II (chapters 2 to 5) argues that this conventional approach has obscured the Matthean intention behind including the name of Uriah in the genealogy. It is better to find the significance of the genealogy by focusing on those who are actually named. Seeking the commonality amongst these named characters, in turn, leads to an examination of “better righteousness”, intermarriage, and levirate marriage in an attempt to illuminate their significance in the genealogy. In regard to “better righteousness”, having examined the Hebrew Scriptures, and Jewish and Christian literature contemporary with Matthew, it will show that the named outsiders group, namely, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Uriah (rather than the unnamed Bathsheba), is more righteous than their corresponding characters from the dominant group, namely, Judah (Matt 1:3), Salmon (Matt 1:5), Boaz (Matt 1:5) and David (1:6), respectively.
Noting that the four named outsiders were all intermarried, chapter 3 will show that the bans against intermarriage with the seven Canaanite nations (Deut 7:1-4) went through a four-phase development. The four stages were Pentateuchal, Early Second Temple, Mid-late Second Temple and Early Rabbinic. Then it will make a close comparison between the post-Ezran ideology and the Matthean attitude towards Gentile converts in the genealogy, in order to show that, employing a contemporary exegetical technique, Matthew includes Tamar in the genealogy to legitimise the granting of a fully-fledged Jewish identity to Gentile converts.
Examining Tamar and Ruth, who are the two unique cases of levirate marriage in the Hebrew Scriptures, and also a whole tractate of the Mishnah concerning this institution from the Early Rabbinic period, this section will contend that Matthew employs the essence of the Israelite levirate institution, namely, to keep the name of the deceased in Israel, to establish the name of Uriah in the genealogy in order to force the legitimisation of the granting of a fully-fledged Jewish identity for Gentile converts.
To sustain the thesis that Matthew seeks to legitimise the granting of a fully-fledged Jewish identity to Gentile converts, Part III (chapter 6) examines the internal evidence of the Gospel, to discover the Matthean attitude towards Gentile converts. Having examined fourteen pericopae concerning interactions between Gentile converts and Jewish leaders in Matthew’s Gospel, it will show that: firstly, Matthew reproves contemporary Jewish leaders; secondly, the Matthean Gentile converts are more righteous than the Jewish leaders; and thirdly, Matthew shows Gentile converts as fully-fledged Jewish identities. It concludes that Matthew intends to win Gentile converts into their group and the Matthean community is intra-muros with respect to Judaism.

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